The role of major gas-rich mergers on the evolution of galaxies from the blue cloud to the red sequence

Abstract

With the aim of exploring the fast evolutionary path from the blue cloud of star-forming galaxies to the red sequence of quiescent galaxies in the local universe, we select a local advanced merging infrared luminous and ultraluminous galaxy (adv-merger (U)LIRGs) sample and perform careful dust extinction corrections to investigate their positions in the SFR-$M_{\ast }$, u-r and NUV-r color-mass diagrams. The sample consists of 89 (U)LIRGs at the late merger stage, obtained from cross-correlating the IRAS Point Source Catalog Redshift Survey and 1 Jy ULIRGs samples with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR7 database. Our results show that $74\%\pm 5\%$ of adv-merger (U)LIRGs are localized above the $1\ddot{I}ƒ$ line of the local star-forming galaxy main sequence. We also find that all adv-merger (U)LIRGs are more massive than and as blue as the blue cloud galaxies after corrections of Galactic and internal dust extinctions, with $95\%\pm 2\%$ and $81\%\pm 4\%$ of them outside the blue cloud on the u-r and NUV-r color-mass diagrams, respectively. These results, combined with the short timescale for exhausting the molecular gas reservoir in adv-merger (U)LIRGs ($3\times 10^7$ to $3\times 10^8$ years), imply that the adv-merger (U)LIRGs are likely at the starting point of the fast evolutionary track previously proposed by several groups. While the number density of adv-merger (U)LIRGs is only $\sim 0.1\%$ of the blue cloud star-forming galaxies in the local universe, this evolutionary track may play a more important role at high redshift.

32 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ